


The Coffee

by Happyorogeny



Series: The Drow [8]
Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Forgotten Realms, The Legend of Drizzt Series - R. A. Salvatore
Genre: Bad marriages, Coffee, Depressive Episode, Drow, Gen, Its fluffier than it sounds I swear, Jarlaxle making pretty eyes at pretty people, Mentioned Drugging, Mentioned Kidnapping, Murder, Sexism, fantasy sexism, gurl got her eyes on the prize, house fire, maids gonna hustle, mentioned child slavery, mentioned slavery, no divorce, suggested romantic interest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-12
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2020-03-02 05:09:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18804364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Happyorogeny/pseuds/Happyorogeny
Summary: A new town hasn't helped Artemis perk up any at all. But Jarlaxle is very clever and knows how to help.





	The Coffee

Humans’ fascination with warriors and the martial talents confounded Jarlaxle to no end. Of course such things were important, but in the underdark physical combat was very much seen as men’s work and so it was denigrated. Any fool could take up a sword and kill someone, after all. And women, where they chose to fight with weapons, were of course superior to their male peers on the basis of sex alone. Jarlaxle had struggled much in the early days with women mercenaries trying to usurp, seduce or kill him.

Yet up here this fool was having a whole parade for himself because he had fought off some bandits. Down in the dark he would have returned to his house and maybe been displayed for status at a party housed by the matron, maybe been lucky enough to win a favour from her if she were generous. 

“You have the shutters open again.” Artemis sounded irritated and Jarlaxle withdrew from the window to smile at him. Artemis didn’t often sleep late, but he had been in a dark humour of late. Jarlaxle didn’t know what it was, exactly, only that he had seen such things in his drow before, fighters and mages whose auras faded and who seemed to lose all hope, who struggled to rise from reverie and took no pleasure in their training or reading or leisure. Some of them even stopped paying homage to their gods, a potentially deadly misstep among drow. 

He had thought the Overworld might be different, but the longer he stayed here the more he knew that was wrong. Really, he ought have known immediately. No land of paradise would spit forth an Artemis. 

“Look, there is a great man here and he leads a crowd.”

Artemis grumbled and drew closer, though he never went as near to the window of their rented apartment as Jarlaxle did. 

“That fool.” 

“You know each other?”

“He’s a jumped up highwayman. Tried to rob me once.”

“And he lives?”

“The guards were actually doing their job that day.” Artemis moved parallel to the window for a moment and Jarlaxle could almost feel him calculating whether a repeat attempt was worth it, then abandon the notion as unprofitable. But that was the most interest he had shown in anything in a whole week. He leaned out the window again so as to avoid the appearance of caring too much and said, deliberately casual;

“The serving maid downstairs gave me a bag of those little bitter ground-up beans. I cannot know what to do with them, but she assured me they are very lovely.” 

He knew well what coffee was. Drow had superior stimulants of their own, usually fungal in nature, and he had read enough pilfered surface literature to know of coffee and tea and other such drinks. But showing too much interest would in turn chase Artemis’ interest away. 

“She wants you to marry her.” Artemis sounded as if he had gone to investigate the bag. 

“What? Why?” He knew of marriage and thought it something of a barbaric custom. In theory a drow man could up and leave a mistress if he wished, though there were risks involved. He had to be clever so as not to enrage her, had to make her think it was her idea and had to hope she didn’t strip him of everything he owned before he left. A wife up here could not do the same, or not in this backwater country at least, and might well be dragged back if she tried to leave. And while a drow man might have no control of his own life and own property, it didn’t seem to him that marriage often offered any more security for the surface woman. 

“Look at her other options. Toothless old brutes.” A rich warm scent filled the air as Artemis opened the bag to peer inside. Jarlaxle snuck a sidelong glance at him, and was rewarded by the loveliest sight of the humans face in profile, eyebrows first arching gently in surprise, then furrowing in concentration. “I might pick you myself, in her situation.”

 _Might you now._ Jarlaxle knew better than to react. Artemis was a fickle creature and easily set to flight. He instead pretended to be engrossed in the crowd outside. 

“She doesn’t want any of them, she has an eye for the baker’s son in the last town we passed through.” About a week ago, at that, and the very place that Artemis had seemed to sour. 

“What she wants might not come into it, depending on the father.” Artemis had now started to rummage around in the press, much to Jarlaxle’s barely contained glee. “How do you know that, about the bakers?”

“From speaking to the women around town. They know all the important things up here, who is courting and who is pregnant and by whom, and the movement of goods in the market and how the prices are changing, and how to spin soft cotton and fine linen and lovely silk.” Much as he had courted the menfolk of the houses and underdark streets for information and the women for power, here he found himself dancing in reverse.

And dealing with the unfortunate nature of his sex. In the underdark it made him inferior, despite all his skill and success. Up here it made him an outlier and a threat to his most valuable sources of information. 

Oh, how hard to be a drow and a man and a drow man. And much as he liked all those things there were days he wished to just be Jarlaxle. 

“Do they know they aren’t bakers?” There was an edge to Artemis’s voice that was jagged and rusty, though that might have been because he was hefting a large copper kettle onto the hob. “Do they know it’s a front?”

“They do. Some of them. The maid didn’t.” Much as drow men knew more of political, personal and financial affairs than they tended to let on, so did the women of the surface. And in truth Jarlaxle had suspected as much from the first moment he set eyes on them. Slavers of all stripes looked at people in the same way, assessing their worth. He had felt them weighing him up as some kind of exotic elf, so distracting in his potential value that they hadn’t noticed Artemis at all. 

Artemis had now fetched some strange glassware and sheets of thick paper, folding it over and running the side of his fist along the crease.

“They know about that fire, then.” 

“Such a tragedy. They say the whole house went up with everyone inside.”

“That’s what can happen with flour.” 

And when all the doors and windows were locked closed. And when they were child slavers with a bakery as a cover story to explain the coming and going of couriers, and the movement of large heavy boxes, and the presence of many herbs that could be used for flavour and as sedatives in varying different strengths. Artemis had been very careful to keep his face hidden as they walked by, and had gone out in the evenings every single night they’d stayed there, and being in quite the hurry to leave. And being in a low mood ever since. 

This had happened several times in the past few months, as they traveled. Jarlaxle got the impression he was working through a list. 

Artemis spoke suddenly, eyes on the boiling kettle.

“She wasted no time setting her sights elsewhere. Practical woman.” 

“Handsome as I am, I think I am a poor bet. I’m not staying, after all.” The crowds had thinned so much that he could no longer pretend to be interested in the street outside. Although the housewife down there selling eggs from her window appeared to be most interested in him. He smiled back beauteously and withdrew into the apartment, startling as the kettle started to whistle. 

Artemis had set out two cups. 

Oh. A strange warmth fluttered in his chest, like those colourful little butterfly creatures. Oh. A cup for him, too. 

Pay no attention, he warned himself. No direct attention to it, or he will go all shy again. 

“There’s too much for one person,” Artemis said as if hearing his thoughts. “She hoped you would share with her.” 

“Clever.” He had resorted to similar tricks himself, when he had had less power and needed to rely on the influence of other drow. “She wants to travel, you know. Waterdeep. Safe enough for a young woman, as cities go.” 

“As cities go. The journey would be the problem.” 

“Perhaps I can forget one of my earrings, the ones that make the wearer hard to see. I have several.”Jarlaxle sniffed appreciatively as Artemis set about pouring water over the brown grains. All of this had the air of mysterious rituals about it and Jarlaxle wondered suddenly if Artemis had ever lived with anyone else, if anyone else on this earth had ever seen him do something so mundane as make coffee. 

He bet they hadn’t. He bet that he was special. 

Artemis immediately ruined the moment by snaking out a hand to flick Jarlaxle’s ear, ridding him of dignity and earring both. He recoiled with a yelp and aimed a kick at the back of Artemis’ knee, which he stepped away from with an expression that was almost a smile. 

Was this the thanks he was to expect for all his efforts at companionship?! Really, he ought to-

“Here.” 

He blinked through the pain at the offer of a cup in front of him, filled with something brown and steaming that smelled absolutely delicious. Holding his poor ear protectively he reached out to take it with his free hand. Artemis looked more than a little smug at having caught him off guard, terrible human that he was. Perhaps offering him the first cup was something of an apology. 

More likely he wanted to see if Jarlaxle dropped dead of poison before drinking himself. Well, the joke was on him- Jarlaxle was wearing five different anti-toxin charms today. Only reasonable when one travelled with an assassin.

“Oh! Oh, it’s warm!” And not quite as bitter as he had expected. 

Artemis waited for him to drink before reaching for his own, and frowned at a great outburst of noise downstairs. 

“He has come in here, hasn’t he.” 

“But of course! Let us finish breakfast and then go down to visit, seeing as he is an old friend who owes you money.”

Artemis huffed at such a story, but he looked brighter around the edges. And that was quite enough for today, Jarlaxle thought. Some plans, and some people, required patience.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! If you enjoyed this come find me at HappyOrogeny on Tumblr!


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